Catching the Light Read online

  Praise for Catching the Light

  Susan Sinnott’s novel, Catching the Light, captures, with wonderful precision, the inner lives of two of the most vivid, richly-realized characters you’re likely to come across in a long while. This novel is full of adversity and heartbreak, art and redemption, fear and bravery, and ultimately, love in all its fine shadings, tones, and colours.

  –Lisa Moore, bestselling, award-winning author of Flannery and Caught

  Susan Sinnott’s Catching the Light exhibits the same high level of artistry sought after by her protagonist, Cathy. Perceptive, psychologically intricate, wise, and beautifully written, the book is memorable, above all, for its truth and how it catches the poetry and complexity of everyday life.

  –Ed Kavanagh, author of The Confessions of Nipper Moony and Strays

  Catching the Light is a novel about perception…a lofty theme grounded in authentic detail, like the grey and unpredictable weather, bologna sandwiches and Cheezies, a small town’s proclivity for gossip and solace, and whether Red Rose really makes the best cup of tea.

  –St. John’s Telegram

  Copyright © 2018, Susan Sinnott

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior written permission from the publisher, or, in the case of photocopying or other reprographic copying, permission from Access Copyright, 1 Yonge Street, Suite 1900, Toronto, Ontario M5E 1E5.

  Vagrant is an imprint of Nimbus Publishing Limited

  3660 Strawberry Hill Street, Halifax, NS, B3K 5A9

  (902) 455-4286 nimbus.ca

  Printed and bound in Canada

  NB1282

  This story is a work of fiction. Names, characters, incidents, and places, including organizations and institutions, either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Cover image: Here and Now, 40 x 48, oil on canvas, © Katharine Burns,katharineburns.com

  Design: Jenn Embree

  Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

  Sinnott, Susan, author

  Catching the Light / Susan Sinnott.

  Issued in print and electronic formats.

  ISBN 978-1-77108-596-0 (softcover).--ISBN 978-1-77108-597-7 (HTML)

  I. Title.

  PS8637.I635C38 2018C813'.6C2017-907957-3

  C2017-907958-1

  Nimbus Publishing acknowledges the financial support for its publishing activities from the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund (CBF) and the Canada Council for the Arts, and from the Province of Nova Scotia. We are pleased to work in partnership with the Province of Nova Scotia to develop and promote our creative industries for the benefit of all Nova Scotians.

  To John R.

  Prologue

  They held the memorial at the Sheppards’s church—the one with the red roof on the north side of the harbour. People poured in from everywhere, converging on the scraped and salted car park, heads down into the wind, swivelling necks to greet each other. A whole year. Imagine.

  Parking was a challenge once the lot was filled. Some drivers dropped off their passengers first then had to scurry round people to catch up. Latecomers rammed two wheels up snowbanks and wondered if they would get out again. Inside, the shuffling continued well past the appointed hour as the seats filled and the aisles filled and still people were squeezing in at the back.

  The school choir was growing restless. Cathy Russell, in the fourth row of the congregation, pulled a pad out of a red quilted bag and sketched the nearest choir members—just a few quick lines but she captured the leg-crossing and sideways looks, the nudges. Then she turned a page and drew the one immobile figure, Hutch Parsons, perhaps because he embodied the real mood in the church. He seemed to be looking beyond the walls to some faraway place, remembering.

  The doctor’s wife was too far back to see the choir but she would still hear them sing. She was wiping her eyes after Hutch’s solo. His voice was pure and mellow and powerful. “Abide with Me.” The sound seemed to rise and expand, drawing the tears out of those pale faces, pulling the sorrow up out of the church, up into the clean cold air, and away.

  Part One

  “I could paint the mountains the way they look, but it isn’t how I see them.”

  —Justin Beckett, artist

  On the Edge

  June 1995

  It was the F word that did it. Fail.

  She couldn’t tell them. Couldn’t tell her parents that Mrs. Elliot asked her to stay behind after class, got up and closed the door. Have a seat, Cathy. And Cathy knew what was coming but couldn’t stop it—she’d failed her exams. Last year’s teacher just said she hadn’t passed, which sounded nicer.

  Mrs. Elliot pulled a chair up close. Cathy hunched down over the table between them, traced a groove with her finger—dug with a compass point maybe and filled in with ballpoint. She could feel crumbs from an eraser and pushed them into a pile, swept them onto the floor with the side of her hand. Kids were shouting outside, somebody yelling at Parsons—Cathy’s old class.

  “Don’t you agree, Cathy?”

  Cathy took a quick breath and coughed on a bit of chalk dust. She looked up. “Yes, Mrs. Elliot.”

  The chalk hung in the air, lay like snow on the teacher’s green sweater, all down the arm she’d used to clean the board. It had gone into lines in the bend of her elbow. Cathy could paint that. She tried to fix the picture in her head: four long lines spreading out from the front and two short—

  “So we have to think what’s best for next year.”

  She didn’t want to hear about next year. Mrs. Elliot was going to tell her she’d have to do grade seven again. Again. Couldn’t bear it. She’d still be in junior high, a mile taller than the rest, kids all calling her Lighthouse, saying how’s the weather up there. No hiding being two years older. No hiding being dumb.

  She’d been counting the days, minutes, to the end of school, to when she could be at her pictures all day. No more homework with red lines all over, no more saying don’t know in front of everybody. No being left ’til last when they picked teams—Cathy’s on your side. No, she’s not, she’s on yours.

  Life stretched out thin and grey and she couldn’t see past the greyness. If only she could drop out—and do what? She was no good for anything or anybody. The one thing she could do, wanted to do, was paint. But she needed someone to show her, needed proper paints and boards or canvas or whatever, and she’d never have money for all that, and you couldn’t buy them round here anyway. So she was stuck going round and round and—

  “Cathy.”

  Mrs. Elliot was holding out an envelope, saying it would all be sorted out next September. Cathy didn’t want to touch that envelope, whatever was inside it. The teacher stood, patting her shoulder, and Cathy went on sitting like a lump.

  “Off you go now or you’ll miss the bus. And give that to your parents, soon as you get home.”

  Cathy missed the bus on purpose. She cut behind buildings, out of sight as much as she could, but she had to use the bridge across the Tickle, and Main Road was the only place to walk in some spots so she pulled up her hood, disappearing inside. What was in that letter? Was it even worse than doing grade seven again? What could be worse? The question gnawed at her all the way home.

  The road was bending away from the shore past Aunt Joanie’s house. Cathy pulled the edges of her hood together so she could only see the pavement in front—head down up the hill and round the bend, fast. Her aunts didn’t care that she was dumb, didn’t notice. They just though
t she was weird because she never played with other kids, didn’t Join In. She was A Problem. It’s not healthy being at those pictures all the time. Not normal.

  The sky looked how she felt: grey and dull and saggy. It just sat on your head and squeezed the juice out of everything. Nothing moved down in Mariners Cove, on the wharves or on the water. Even the gulls looked bored. The tears started up again, drying in the wind, so by the time she had walked the six kilometres home to Mariners Head her face had stiffened in stripes. Can’t stay back; won’t stay back. She hid the envelope in a drawer under her paint things.

  It was Mom’s card night so supper was a rush job, macaroni and cheese, none of the usual questions. Cathy scrunched down and pushed food round her plate, but Mom was flapping about so she didn’t notice.

  When Cathy said she was going to bed her dad stared at her over the top of his newspaper like he was checking the ocean for signs. Anything wrong? No. She only just made it out of the room before her eyes filled up again. She hated this crying stuff—never used to cry. And in bed with the covers over her head it all got worse and worse. What was she going to do?

  And in the hour before dawn, she decided.

  ***

  The sky was a thick purple, a new day with its eyes still closed. Nothing stirred in the houses scattered across Mariners Head until, in the last house up the hill, a door opened. Someone came out, easing it shut with both hands—someone used to the wind having its way with doors. The girl stood for a while, leaning her forehead against the surface, smoothing it with her palms. One finger followed the grooves round the brass knocker her mother polished to perfection every week; the knocker nobody used because they preferred to hallooo and walk in.

  She pushed herself off and strode away and by the time she reached the road, the day had lightened through indigo to a glorious cobalt blue you could almost see through, almost sail through. At least that was how Cathy usually saw it, though she could never tell you in words, but today she was blind.

  She walked with a long-legged swing, unhurried but effective, accustomed to roots and rocks, to being on foot. She picked up the pace where the track met the road, stomped almost, elbows jabbing behind and hands clenched. Can’t stay back. Won’t stay back. She pushed off her hood despite the east wind that sliced and flayed. Cathy was walking up the road to the Mariners Point Light where she went to be alone. To paint. To escape. She usually carried a bag with her paint things but not this time.

  She slowed down, arms no longer pumping, legs losing their rhythm. Now every step took effort. She stopped for a while, eyes closed, then started up again in a dragging way. As the sky turned a gold-tinged pink she arrived at the cliffs beyond the lighthouse and looked down into the black depths of ocean eighty feet below.

  This was the line between here and there. No landwash, no vague intertidal zone, no undecided. She stood at the edge, a mass of instincts and yearnings and despair, while the dawn painted itself in around her, shade by delicate shade.

  A big hairy dog licked her hand and when she jerked and yanked her hand away it barked and sat back with its tongue flapping and all those teeth. Cathy looked round for a stick or something to shoo it away but the new doctor’s wife was coming through the spruce, calling to it. Cathy moved back where it was darker, into the trees.

  Mrs. Brooks grabbed the dog’s collar and stood rubbing its head. “Sorry if he scared you. It’s all a big act. He’d only hurt a fly if he sat on it by mistake.” She smiled at Cathy, then the smile kind of straightened out and she stared a bit. Maybe seen the tears. Cathy turned away.

  Mrs. Brooks half sat on a rock but before she even reached it she was asking questions. Was that where Cathy used to live, that house up there by the lighthouse? Mmm. Did she miss living there? Mmm. Why did they move? And she just sat there waiting for answers. Stayed and stayed. She moved to another rock but she never took her eyes off Cathy.

  “They automated the light,” Cathy said, scuffing up a bit of peat with one foot. “Said they didn’t need a keeper living up here no more.”

  “I suppose a modern light needs less looking after,” Mrs. Brooks said.

  “It still needs someone to clear off the snow and ice all the time so you can see it and those new lights don’t shine as far as the old ones. And you could put your ear on the new foghorn and it wouldn’t even rattle the wax. The old one would take your head off.” Cathy had turned towards Mrs. Brooks. “And what happens when the light breaks down? Oh, it won’t break down, they said. Ha! Broke down three times last winter, always in storms when it was needed most.”

  Cathy kicked up a few fir cones with her toe and the dog rushed over and pounced on them, shoving its nose through piles of brown needles and moss, then sneezing.

  “But don’t ships all have that new GPS now?”

  “That’s what the Coast Guard said. But that boat with engine trouble last fall didn’t, with three men aboard. Those two duck hunters didn’t. And seamen still want a light they can rely on for backup.”

  Mrs. Brooks didn’t say anything but she was leaning forward, listening. Cathy jabbed her toe at a root. That was the Coast Guard for you. She might have failed her exams all by herself but the Coast Guard had spoiled everything else. Mariners Point Light was her home. They’d lived here always—four generations of Russells. Until last year when she turned thirteen. Until the Coast Guard made them leave.

  “They gave Dad a new office but you couldn’t even see the ocean. What good’s that to a keeper? He quit. Now he’s doing biology in St. John’s so he’s gone altogether, ’cept in the holidays.” She had kicked all the dirt off the root so it was starting to shine white along the top. Her voice sank. “First they took my home, then they took my dad.”

  “How sad.”

  Cathy shrugged. “Dad was expecting it. Bought the Stuckless place on the Head when the old lady died. It was falling down but it was away from the other houses with a nice bit of land. Spent three years fixing it up. He was ready.”

  The dog came back from wherever covered in mud and rested its drippy chin on Mrs. Brooks’s knee. Then it nudged her elbow with its nose, harder and harder until she scratched its foolish ears. But she never took her eyes off Cathy.

  “Dad says it’s no use regretting. Move on.” There was a long pause then she muttered, mostly to herself, “All right for him. He’s smart.”

  Cathy wrapped her arms round herself and stared at her feet. She wished Mrs. Brooks would look away, go away, because she could feel the tears in her chest building and building and any minute now she was going to shame herself and…. A big sob burst out. Couldn’t stop it. And she felt arms go round her. She started to push them off but her own arms were trapped, and another sob burst out. The dog was jumping up at them, barking, and making them stagger.

  Then Mrs. Brooks was giving Cathy a tissue and telling her to sit on her rock while she leaned on a spiky-looking spruce growing next to it and she was going to get her jacket all sticky from the sap.

  “What’s wrong, Cathy?” Mrs. Brooks was looking at her, waiting, and after a bit she said, “Tell me. You’ll feel better.” And she went right on waiting.

  “Failed my exams.” Cathy blew her nose so hard her ears popped. The pressure disappeared, that pressure in her head and in her chest. She could breathe.

  “Oh, I’m so sorry. I remember when I failed math. I was about your age and I didn’t want anyone to know, didn’t want my parents to see my report card, didn’t want to go home even. It felt like the biggest disaster ever.”

  Cathy nodded. She could feel Mrs. Brooks looking at her but she kept her eyes down and Mrs. Brooks said, “I don’t know what I thought my parents would do, but they just said, ‘Oh dear, we’ll have to do something about this.’ So they started helping whenever I was stuck. And I did math homework first instead of leaving it to the last minute.” She paused, then said, “I never in my life got a good ma
rk in math but I didn’t fail again.”

  A beam of sunlight slid through a break in the trees. First sun for days. Cathy reached her foot out so the light bent up over her sneaker.

  “Don’t have much trouble with math.” She hiccupped and her eyes prickled again. “It’s English and science and social studies….” And all of a sudden the words burst out of her: “Can’t even read the questions.” She couldn’t stop those hiccuppy sobs. She stood up. “Can’t even read the stupid questions.” Her voice squeaked on that last word and she swallowed hard.

  Mrs. Brooks was coming toward her again but Cathy couldn’t handle another hug so she turned and began walking up and down, and the only sounds were from the wind and the ocean and her feet rustling through winter’s leavings.

  She slowed down after a while and stood very still in front of Mrs. Brooks. She looked straight at her. “I can’t read.”

  Mrs. Brooks nodded slowly, then smiled. A warm, friendly smile. “Maybe we can do something about that,” and she patted Cathy’s arm. Then she looked away for the first time, tried to scrape the moss off another rock, and sat on it. “Not one flat rock anywhere,” she said with a laugh. “And this one is probably full of creepy-crawlies with bad habits.” She put a hand under her bum on the low side of the rock, levelled herself up. “Has anyone tried to help you read, one on one?”

  “What?”

  “Just you and a teacher—one you and one teacher,” Mrs. Brooks said.

  “Oh. No.”

  Mrs. Brooks went on asking stuff about school and books and what she’d done and not done, on and on.

  Partly to stop the questions Cathy said, “Can you help me? Please?”

  Mrs. Brooks said she would try but Cathy needed to ask her parents first. She asked about next year and Cathy said she couldn’t remember what the teacher said because she hadn’t heard half of it. And when she said she hadn’t told Mom and Dad that she’d failed, and about the teacher’s letter, Mrs. Brooks almost jumped off that rock.